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Outside events:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second
Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-933-2724 for
details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society meets on the third
Saturday of every month in Belleville; call 201-432-5965 for details.

As of this writing the match between Garry Kasparov, the best
chess player in the world and Big Blue, the chess-playing computer
from IBM, has just finished its six games. Each player had one a
game and then there were three draws. Going into the sixth game
Kasparov was said to be tense. That says something right there.
It is a bad sign for a chess player to go into a game in a bad
mental state. Big Blue on the other hand went into the sixth game
with complete abandon, what the French call "sang froid. " For all
Big Blue cared, it was just another day. Big Blue was just playing
for the electrical current he needed. There certainly were a lot
of people who were hoping Kasparov would win the tournament. He
was sort of the protoplasmic equivalent of "the Great White Hope."

In a way, Kasparov was--the phrase that comes to mind is from the
famous WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast--"consecrated to the
preservation of human supremacy on this earth." I think there were
few of us who were actually rooting for the computer. I know I
was, however. I dont have my pride all wrapped around having
humans remain superior to machines. In a lot of physical ways
machines have been superior to humans for a long time, and nobody
resents a bulldozer. I would like to see machines surpass us
intellectually also. I would like to see a computer program be
better than the best doctor in the world. Because then you could
make multiple copies of a doctor better than the best. Of course
that would be risky in some ways also. There might be fewer people
trying to become doctors and with machines doing medicine, the
field might stagnate. But I would like to see the capability
there. The thing is that computers are natural slaves of humanity.
It would be really stupid of us to start giving them rights. But
the more intelligent the slave, the better, as long as computers
have to will to rebel.

What happened with the sixth and final game was fairly interesting.
Kasparov lost. The way these things are scored, that means that
Kasparov won 2.5 games out of 6, Big Blue won 3.5 out of 6. But
then Kasparov said that this last game meant nothing and that Big
Blue cheated. Now this may be the most public chess match ever to
feature an accusation of cheating. Cheating is possible in poker
where there is a strong element of luck in the shuffle of the deck.
It is much harder to cheat in chess with a lot of people watching
since what is on the board is really all there is. What was
Kasparov thinking--that Big Blue said, "when he isn't looking,
steal his rook"? Did he think that the IBM people brought in a
ringer, THE CHESS HUSTLER FROM ANOTHER WORLD? Well, no, actually
what he said was that Big Blue changed its strategy mid-game. As
if Kasparov had never changed his strategy in the middle of a chess
game. Somehow I wonder how much sympathy he expects--being the
best human chess player in the world the IBM team could not bring
in somebody better. To complain "It was an ambush; Big Blue
changed its strategy" will probably not get a whole lot of
sympathy. The people running Big Blue for some reason dignified
this complaint with a vehement denial. Since the accusation is at
worst that with a small human assist a computer can be the best
chess player in the world. More likely the computer can be the
best all on its lonesome.

But Kasparov's complaints notwithstanding it would appear that the
greatest chess player in the world is one made of metal and
silicon. This capability, while a test of intelligence is not the
same thing as the Turing Test. That is the classic test of
computer intelligence, the ability to carry on a human conversation
and not be distinguishable from a human. (I think an intermediate
test should be can a computer bark like a dog well enough to be
able to fool a dog into thinking it is of the same species.) On
first consideration the Turing Test is certainly a more difficult
task than playing chess for a computer. I mean chess is a somewhat
limited game, always with a very small set of possible next moves.
Conversations on the other hand can go in a very large number of
directions. It certainly would be a lot tougher to train a
computer for casual conversation. On the other hand it must be
more than 98% of humanity that is capable of chit-chat. At least
in theory there are no humans capable of doing what Big Blue has
done--beating the world chess champion. [-mrl]

Capsule: Luc Besson's manic sci-fi adventure
will likely accrue a following, but its fans
will not include me. The film has great art
direction but a farce of a plot that devolves
into a lot of familiar elements rather than a
few new ones. Besson has a good eye for a
scene but a very forced sense of humor. There
were a lot of good people who worked on this
film and it is a pity their efforts came to so
little. Rating: low 0 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 3 positive, 9 negative, 7
mixed

I wonder if this is a postmodern science fiction movie? If so I am
willing to go back to the Modern and start over from there. THE
FIFTH ELEMENT is what you would get if you combined a plot from
HEAVY METAL comic magazine, the pacing of a Japanese anime film,
and Terry Gilliam visualizations. It is a film that will probably
have a cult following while others will find it, as my wife put it,
appallingly bad. France is known for modest art films, and
director Luc Besson is French, but he is a renegade with a style
generally out of empty Hollywood action films. His previous films
include LA FEMME NIKITA and LEON (U.S. title: THE PROFESSIONAL).
Here he has made a film with perhaps the best art direction since
BLADERUNNER and uses it to tell a dim-witted pop-sci-fi story.
Besson, who also co-authored the screenplay, realized that a good
plot might be hard to follow for some. He simulates the same
effect by having a bad plot that just has a lot of stupid things
happening very, very fast.

The Ultimate Evil comes visiting our solar system every 5000 years
in the form of a huge glowing sphere that for some unexplained
reason is trying to destroy the Earth. I guess that is just what
huge glowing spheres do. With the help of some strange aliens and
with four mystic stones we Earth people have been able to fend off
the evil in the past. In 1914 the friendly aliens took the stones
away for safekeeping. Previously they had been guarded by a long
line of priests. The priests still know what do to about the
coming evil, but no longer have the stones they need. Our main
story is set early in the 23rd Century. The Evil is returning.
There are forces of Good trying to stop the end of the world and
forces of Evil trying to steal the stones. The leader of the evil
forces is an industrialist named Zorg, played by Gary Oldman. Just
what Zorg hopes to gain by letting his planet be destroyed, if it
is his planet, is left as a loose end. I guess stealing mystic
symbols is just what evil industrialists do. One of the good
aliens is killed and cloned, but in cloned form seems to be a
beautiful woman, Milla Jovovich as Le-Eluu. She is terrified of
the humans who have cloned her and she takes a swan dive off a
skyscraper (all buildings seem to be skyscrapers in the 23rd
Century) and lands in the floating taxicab of Korben (Bruce
Willis). This pulls Korben into the action and starts him on the
quest for the four elemental stones.

Bruce Willis is in the lead and--as he seems to have wanted to show
people with IN COUNTRY--he can act. He just chooses not to push
himself much beyond the limited roles he has been playing. Of
somewhat more interest is Milla Jovovich. Though much of the film
she must speak a nonsense language--actually it sounds a lot like
Italian--and makes it sound very natural. This is not generally
considered an important acting skill, but here it was what was what
was required and she does a very credible job. Gary Oldman at one
time seemed to be the Robert Duvall of his generation. He would do
well to stay away from Luc Besson films since this is the second
film in which Besson has been able to coax from Oldman his very
worst and most exaggerated performances. His performance here is
at best just not notable, and that is really unusual for an
otherwise very good actor. Ian Holm plays a priest of the line
entrusted with alien secrets. Like Oldman, he has done better
acting jobs and perhaps their efforts are exaggerated intentionally
by Besson so nobody misses the point that this film is not intended
to be taken entirely seriously.

This film had the budget, the art direction, the special effects,
and the cast to make a much better film. One has the feeling that
Besson is really talking down to his audiences and laughing up his
sleeve. There are moments in this film that show what it could
have been, but unfortunately it was no more than it was. This is a
film that might be better to watch with the sound off. I rate it a
low 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]